TheOverAnalyzed

Andreas Tsaousis, for Carscoops:

Having followed in the footsteps […] of Hollywood legends like Steve McQueen and Paul Newman, the ex-Grey’s Anatomy actor also doubled as a racing driver.

Since 2004, Patrick Dempsey has competed in 68 races, including taking part in the 24 Hours of Le Mans four times

[In] 2015 he scored his best-ever result at Le Mans, finishing second (along with Peter Long and Marco Seefried) in the GTE Am class in a Porsche 911 RSR and winning the FIA World Endurance Championship race at Fuji.

Last year wasn’t all good news, though, as he departed from the hit TV show that earned him the nickname “Dr. McDreamy” and his 16-year marriage to Jillian Fink ended. The pair has since reconciled, and now he’s decided racing has taken a back seat to other priorities.

“At this point in my life, after an amazing season thanks to my friends at Porsche and TAG Heuer, I need to take a step back and focus on both my family and my acting career”, said the 50-year old actor.

It’s hard to read between the lines here.

For whatever reason, I recently started watching Grey’s Anatomy.^[1] I’m somewhere in the middle of the third season, and although the show is chalk-full of nonsensical drama, I haven’t gotten far enough along to understand why McDreamy was killed off last year (did his death make sense for the show, or was it hastily written-in for non-obvious-to-the-viewer reasons?).

Was it because he wanted to keep racing? Or was it something else?

Also, the demise of Dempsey’s Derek Shepherd sure seems to coincide with his split with wife Jillian Fink.

Likewise, I don’t follow the Le Man series closely enough to make an informed guess as to why Dempsey is now leaving racing.

Whatever the reason, this much is true: just as was the case for the aforementioned Newman and McQueen, Dempsey’s dabbling in racing was a fun time for casual racecar fans like myself.

(From Black Flag)